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Last Updated

September 07, 2023

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Filing Information

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It is important to keep good records to determine the correct amount of state and local tax you owe.

Your records should include:

Bills, receipts, invoices, cash-register tapes, and any other documents that support the entries in your books
Exemption certificates
Shipping documents
Worksheets used to prepare your tax returns

Filing Frequency

Your filing schedule is based on your monthly Sales and Use Tax liability, including local sales and use taxes administered by Revenue, as shown in the following table.

Filing Frequency	Average Tax Reported	Due Date
Annually	Less than $100 per month	February 5 of the following year
Quarterly	$100 to $500 per month	April 20, July 20, October 20, and January 20
Monthly	More than $500 per month	20th day of the following month

Due Dates

You may not receive a notice to remind you to file your return or pay your tax so it's important to remember the return due date. For a list of due dates, see Sales Tax Return Filing Due Dates.

Filing a Return

You must file your Sales and Use Tax return online through our e-Services system.

Note: If you have multiple locations and file a consolidated return, you can enter the information for each location separately or attach a spreadsheet file with information for all locations. See Sales and Use Tax File Formats.

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Information to File a Return [+]

You need the following information to file your Sales and Use Tax return:

Minnesota Tax ID Number
e-Services username and password
Gross receipts - Total receipts (or sales) from all business operations for Minnesota during the reporting period. Include all taxable and exempt sales, leases, and rentals. Do not include sales tax.
Amount of tax you collected for:
- General Rate Sales Tax (state rate) - total receipts from all taxable sales, leases, and rentals subject to the general rate sales tax. Do not include sales tax or sales made through a marketplace, when the marketplace is required to collect and remit the sales tax.
- Local sales taxes - total receipts (or sales) subject to a local tax.
- Special rate taxes - total receipts (or sales) subject to special tax.
Amount of tax you owe for:
- Use tax purchases (state rate) - total amount you paid for items purchased for your own use without paying sales tax to the seller.
- Local use taxes - total amount you paid for items purchased for your own use without paying local sales tax to the seller.
- Variable rate use tax - When you buy items outside Minnesota, the seller may be required to charge you that state's state and local sales tax if you pick up the items there. However, you still owe use tax to Minnesota if the other state's sales tax rate is less than Minnesota's general sales tax rate. You pay the difference in the two rates as variable rate use tax.

Rounding Amounts

When you file your return, add all of your taxable amounts together to figure the total to enter on each tax line. You may have different tax amounts for different tax lines, such as local taxes.

When you enter totals in e-Services, e-Services will round the amount for each tax line of the return as shown in the chart below.

How e-Services Rounds	Example
Amounts less than 50 cents are dropped	$1.39 becomes $1
Amounts from 50 to 99 cents are increased to the next highest dollar	$2.50 becomes $3

Sales Tax Included in Price

If your total receipts include sales tax, you must subtract the sales tax before filing your return. See Subtracting Sales Tax from Receipts.

No Taxable Sales

If you did not make any taxable sales for a filing period, you must still file a zero return.

Marketplace Providers

If you are a marketplace provider report your sales, including the sales made on behalf of your marketplace sellers, on your own sales tax return. You may request an additional Minnesota Sales Tax ID Number to report the sales made on behalf of your marketplace sellers.

Before Filing Your Return

You may need to adjust your sales figures before filing your return. If the following items apply to sales in the current period, subtract them from the appropriate tax type before you file.

Bad debts on sales previously written off for federal income tax purposes.
Cash or credit refunds given to customers. For example, if a customer returns an item subject to Minnesota and local sales tax, adjust both the state and local tax lines.
Checks returned for nonsufficient funds (if you use the cash method of accounting).

Note: If your return shows a credit balance because of the adjustment, we will refund the overpayment to you. Do not take credit for the overpayment on other returns.

Simplified Electronic Return (SER) [+]

The Minnesota Department of Revenue accepts Simplified Electronic Returns (SER) filed through our webservice from all taxpayers.

To file a SER, you must use the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) Schema set.

For more information, see the SST Technology Guide.

File SER with Minnesota

When you are ready to file a SER with Minnesota, you must:

Obtain login credentials
Certify or test submissions before transmitting your first SER
Use our testing and production URLs:
- Testing URL
- Production URL

For credentials and testing information, email SERCredentialsandTesting@state.mn.us.

You may use a SER to submit both Sales and Use Tax returns and payments.

Currently, Minnesota does not require page 2 of the SST Schema
When including payment, we advise including a request date

Note: We do not provide programming support to file SERs.

Accounting Methods

Typically, you use the same accounting method for sales tax as your personal or business income tax. To use a different accounting method, you must have written permission from the Minnesota Department of Revenue. For more information, call us at 651-296-6181 or 1-800-657-3777 (toll-free).

Cash Method

You are on the cash method of accounting when:

You report income and your sales tax liability when you receive payments from your customer.
You record expenses and any associated use tax in the period you pay the invoice.

Accrual Method

You are on the accrual method of accounting when:

You report income and your sales tax liability when you make the sale to your customer (invoice date).
You record expenses and any associated use tax in the period you made the purchases (invoice date).

Penalties and Interest

If you do not file or pay your taxes on time, you may owe penalties and interest.

We will send you a notice if we do not receive your return or payment. If you have questions or believe we made an error, call us immediately. We will work with you to get your account current.

For more information, see Penalty and Interest for Business Taxes.

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